Day: November 8, 2011

The sense of smell is easy to neglect when writing any kind of scene. I’m always forgetting to include it myself, and I have to make an effort to check for it.

But consider the following:

When I was deployed to the Persian Gulf for Desert Storm, we had a long and exhausting flight. After we arrived, we drove around for hours before finally stopped at a port that was a temporary staging area. We dropped our great under a carport for trucks and sprawled out on the ground to go to sleep.

And I couldn’t sleep because, all night long —

The smell.

Asphalt, completely saturated with oil.

It’s still the most memorable thing about my first day in Saudi Arabia, even 21 years later.